Magic Boots

Apple-picking-with-friends-on-a-sleety-fall-Saturday-boots.

Tending-the-chickens-in-a-downpour-boots.

Mow-forever-boots.

Walk-through-anything-with-feelings-of-indestructibility-boots.

These:

For the last 25+ years, boots have, for want of a better term, been a big deal for me.  Started to realize their importance in my life while in college, after studying was done for the night or the week, and I found myself in places perhaps I should not have been, late at night, with friends.
Boots = adventure.  Or more accurately, they equalled a feeling of indestructibility while on those adventures.   I was 10 feet tall, impervious to anything that may harm me, and the earth trembled as I stomped upon it.
And that, my friends, was a great feeling.   Which likely explained in part the big grin I'd usually be sporting, whenever the late night adventures took place.

They say that youth have no sense of their own mortality, of being... breakable.
I was not one of those kids.   I never took being in one piece for granted.   I lived and moved with greater caution than many of my peers, often to my own detriment. I moved with reservation, while they plowed forward without pause.   Guess who was frequently a step or two behind as a result...
Which made the boots, THE BOOTS!!!! - so special.   I was stomping the earth late at night with friends, I was a giant, no longer a mere mortal.  Let's climb...THAT!!!!  Now!!!!

And, so.... boots.   Ever since.   and I beat the hell out of them before finally replacing them, every time.

This is one of the the things I wish for my daughter, as she grows up - boots.  Real or metaphorical, I don't really care which.  She's shaping up to be much like I was, a bit more physically cautious than her peers; letting the worry of potential injury and pain keep her from doing things, things that many of the other kids do without thought.    And while the nervous dad in me is glad of this on some levels, he also remembers what it was like to be... her.

Of course I want her to make intelligent choices and never completely eschew caution.  But I also want her to have the feeling of stomping the earth, the sublime pleasure of looking down and laughing at just how high you've climbed without once stopping to think about it.  
"Holy crap!  That's a long way down!  This is so cool....."

It's just so damn important to feel that way once in awhile.

I get the middle-aged version of this now, living where I do.  
Mud?  Screw mud.
Rainstorms?
Cold, wet, mess?
Time to mow the biggest yard God ever made, known to have... critters lurking within?
Lost the trail?
"Screw them, too." He says, slipping into his boots.

And when i combine them with these:

The world trembles before me.....

As I hope it will tremble before my daughter, at least once in awhile.